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Kinda concerned about gender portrayals here
A minor thought I'd love to hear response on: the human shell of Sandy is a really interesting idea--"embodying" the way the program works into a more natural communication is brilliant.
I get a bit anxious, though, about the body it was put into. Sandy obviously hits on a slightly old-fashioned archetype of the secretary, what with the illustration style and the way the nature of the interaction: we tell her what to do and she dutifully responds. I would be less prone to send out group reminders because of this, I think--the notion of a "virtual secretary" might hit many a bit oddly.
I really enjoy the idea of humanizing an automated email to-do reminder, and of embedding these commands in human-to-human communication. I just wish there weren't so much baggage around the image of the assistant "herself."
I get a bit anxious, though, about the body it was put into. Sandy obviously hits on a slightly old-fashioned archetype of the secretary, what with the illustration style and the way the nature of the interaction: we tell her what to do and she dutifully responds. I would be less prone to send out group reminders because of this, I think--the notion of a "virtual secretary" might hit many a bit oddly.
I really enjoy the idea of humanizing an automated email to-do reminder, and of embedding these commands in human-to-human communication. I just wish there weren't so much baggage around the image of the assistant "herself."
I’m unsure
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Inappropriate?I would agree with you, but I thought I read somewhere that Sandy's appearance and personality were sort-of modeled after Tim O'Reilly's real life assistant (also named Sandy). Which makes me not really worried about generic stereotypes so much, if Sandy is based on an actual person. -
Inappropriate?I want an option in settings to make "Sandy" appear male--e.g. Aleksander. Then people can choose!
If someone'll code it I'd illustrate it.
I’m hopeful
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Inappropriate?If it were made a male could it be said it was a bias against women ala the old favorite "geek male" stereotype?
And maybe Sandy is transgendered, ever think of that. Sandy might have started out life as a shell bashing geek male named Sanford who decided that the inner female in him needed to be let out to the world and thus became Sandy, a shell bashing geek who now knows how to code up something so dang cool it will save folks from the death by detail that hits them upside their heads every day.
Whatever the plumbing situation, hats off to Sandy
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Inappropriate?I work at a small University and would like to spread Sandy around. Gender issues are important in my environment. I'd like to request a male female toggle. Sandy is an androgynous name, so a simple icon swap would be great. -
Inappropriate?This seems like it will become an important issue as Sandy gets introduced to more people. The fact that she is modeled after a real person goes a long way toward deflecting criticism but you have to explain it. Toggling the icon might be the best solution. I like the icon, but if she has to change maybe just something non gendered at all - a DNA double helix? - it looks kind of like an 'S' -
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Inappropriate?I'm typically pretty sensitive to this kind of thing...but I think of her more like Jeeves from the old AskJeeves.com. I never had a problem that he was some kind of snobby, uptight butler. Still, it might be cool to toggle her gender--seems like they have to be really sensitive to the brand they're creating though.
